Information exists in many forms, some of which are visible. Visible information exists in a form that is visually perceivable by sighted humans. Visible information includes images. Graphical images are those that are rendered in some format that is typically characterized by some degree of persistence or durability. Drawings, for instance, are images that are typically recorded for viewing on a medium such as paper. Photographs are images captured with a camera or a similar device.
Cameras are apparatus that record photographic images in some medium. Legacy cameras record photographs with a chemical medium, typically silver based preparations suspended in gelatinous film emulsions. The silver particles therein oxidize to varying degrees based upon their exposure to light by the camera and change their visually perceivable hue and brightness to record the image as a film based photograph. More modernly, digital cameras capture images electronically.
Digital cameras typically capture images with light sensitive charged coupled devices (CCDs). They record photographs with processing of signals from the CCDs into data. These data are typically stored in flash memory as a digitally rendered record of the image. Such digital photographs enjoy many advantages. Digital photographs may be transferred from the camera with which they were captured to other electronic media including those with information processing capability such as a computer.
Modern computers have capabilities that allow them to easily, efficiently and economically store, handle and process digital photographs and other graphical images with great effect. The capabilities of computers and digital cameras provide powerful tools to photographers and graphic artists, professional and amateur alike. In fact, computers allow digital photographs to be printed and legacy photographs to be scanned, thus allowing photographs to transcend media limitations and change format.
Digital photographs may be viewed on a computer display. The visual depiction of a digital photograph on a display is referred to herein as the display-image of the photograph. Frequently, the display-image of the photograph has a lower resolution than the photograph itself. Relatively low-resolution display-images of photographs are often referred to as thumbnails.
The display-images of multiple digital photographs may be simultaneous displayed on a computer monitor. The simultaneous display of multiple display-images can be useful for a variety of photographic processing tasks, such as editing. The editing function itself can include other functions that are amenable to displaying multiple photographs together. Two such editing functions include sorting and grouping.
In presenting multiple photographs for display together on the same monitor, there are a variety of ways in which the display-images of the photographs can be visually arranged. For instance, the display-images may be arranged manually, e.g., as desired by the user. Alternatively, the display-images may be automatically arranged in a grid-like arrangement.
The display-images of all of the photographs in a particular collection may be displayed together on the monitor, if the collection is small enough and the monitor is large enough. In this context, “small enough” means that the cumulative resolution of the display-images of the photographs in the collection does not exceed the resolution of the display screen.
Image management applications have been developed for digital image management on computers. Such applications provide convenient and powerful image processing, storage, and production capabilities. Image management applications can utilize the great power, speed and capacity that are available with the processing, memory, and storage components on modern computer platforms, as well as the high display qualities of graphics hardware, software, interfaces and monitors.
Modern image management applications allow computers to process “information content” associated with photographs and other images. The information content associated with a digital image may include metadata about the image, as well as data that describes the pixels of which the image is formed. The metadata can include, for example, text and keywords for an image's caption, version enumeration, file names, file sizes, image sizes (e.g., as normally rendered upon display), resolution and opacity at various sizes and other information.
Image keywords, Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) and International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) may also be associated with an image and incorporated into its metadata. EXIF metadata is typically embedded into an image file with the digital camera that captured the particular image. These EXIF metadata relate to image capture and similar information that can pertain to the visual appearance of an image when it is presented.
EXIF metadata typically relate to camera settings that were in effect when the picture was taken (e.g., when the image was captured). Such camera settings include, for example, shutter speed, aperture, focal length, exposure, light metering pattern (e.g., center, side, etc.) flash setting information (e.g., duration, brightness, directedness, etc.), and the date and time that the camera recorded the photograph. Embedded IPTC data can include a caption for the image and a place and date that the photograph was taken, as well as copyright information.
The user of an image management application can use the image management application to add other information to an image's content. For instance, a user-specified rating, or other metric, may be stored as part of the metadata for an image. Such ratings and metrics can relate to information of particular value to the user. The ratings and metrics may add objective information to the metadata associated with a photograph, such as data that reflects a category to which the image is assigned within a collection of images, a source of the image (such as a particular photographer or artist), a project or purpose to which the image relates, and a value, intrinsic or extrinsic, that the image possesses.
Such ratings and metrics however may also convey more subjective user-assigned information, such as a quality level that the user ascribes to a photograph, or a level of artistic or aesthetic merit ascribed thereto. Similarly, the ratings and metrics can simply convey a level of favor, satisfaction and personal liking with which the user holds a particular image. Further, their metadata, including such ratings and metrics, whether objectively or subjectively ascribed or both can allow multiple stored photographs to be compared relative to each other.
When multiple photographs are displayed together, they may be arranged on the monitor screen by the user in accordance with their relationships and comparisons. For example, users may decide to place their favorite photographs along the top of a group of photographs, or down a particular side of the monitor screen, or in some other position that, to a particular user, conveys the subjective and/or objective criteria with which that user decided to have them displayed.
Such arrangements can provide usefulness in the display of multiple photographs, such as directing attentiveness to certain images and/or away from others, conveying a graphical emphasis, and promoting organization. This utility can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of editing and other tasks and functions.
However, the procedures and criteria used to display photographs and other images are typically selected on an ad hoc basis, which can sometimes be inefficient. Further, the ad hoc basis with which photographs are conventionally displayed can require significant forethought and planning by the user to implement. To implement the arrangement once it is planned, the user may also have to execute significant manual programming or operating tasks, which can be time consuming, distracting and tedious and may introduce more inefficiency.
Moreover, for each group of multiple photographs that a user may want to display together, these ad hoc arrangement procedures must be applied anew. However, where different groups of multiple photographs are to be arranged or where certain photographs are included in various groups, the ad hoc procedures must be repeated, yet the criteria with which the images are rated may not hold between the various groupings. This can add a confusion factor to the display arrangement procedure that can cause even greater inefficiency, as it requires additional thought, planning, control and adjustment to implement.
FIG. 4 depicts a typical image storage and display technique 400 familiar in the conventional art. Images 405 and 415 are stored electronically within storage unit 491, which can comprise memory, drives, servers, a storage area network (SAN) or any other medium, apparatus or network capable of image storage. While only two images are shown for simplicity and brevity, as well as to avoid confusion, the number of images storable is limited only by the storage capacity of storage unit 491.
Stored with images 405 and 415 are metadata 403 and 413, which are respectively associated each therewith. These metadata respectively include metric values 401 and 411. Metric value 401 is associated with image 405 and metric value 411 is associated with image 415 according to the associations 406. Images 405 and 415 are retrieved (e.g., accessed in storage 491, processed, etc.) and transmitted via image retrieval path 476 for display with display 450. Image retrieval path 476 can include one or more buses, wire line and/or wireless transmission media. Display 450 can comprise a computer monitor or other display vehicle and image processing means such as a graphics card. Display 450 displays display-images 406 and 416 as graphical representations of the images 405 and 415, respectively.
The metric values 401 and 411, which respectively relate to images 405 and 415, may vary. Upon image retrieval via image path 476, display-images 406 and 416 are displayed conventionally by display 450. However, the display-images 406 and 416 as thus conventionally displayed proffer no way to tell, by looking at these display-images of the images 405 and 415, that they are associated with very different metrics. As conventionally displayed, notwithstanding any difference in their respective metric values 401 and 411, the display-images 406 and 416, are displayed with visually perceivable attributes that are virtually indistinguishable from each other. In order to visually distinguish the display-images 406 and 416, a user viewing conventional display 450 must resort to comparison of the content of the images or similar conventional techniques.
In as much as visually distinguishing the display-images 406 and 416 may be a significant function in editing and other applications, a user is forced to conventionally arrange display-images 406 and 416 on display 450 according to some basis. That basis may be taking metrics 401 and 411 into some account. However, the basis is conventionally an ad hoc one made for each grouping of images, such as images 405 and 415. And for other images, the user is forced to repeat the process. This can be tedious, time consuming and inefficient.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it is not to be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art, merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.